


Assigned Santa at Birth

by storyplease



Category: Original Work
Genre: LGBT, Other, discrimination is bad and shitty, don't do it folks, modern fable, transgender support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21914854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storyplease/pseuds/storyplease
Summary: When a child is born to Christmas-obsessed parents, they do what they can to raise their child to be exactly what they hope he will be.  The problem is that a child is not a vessel for their parents hopes and dreams. A child is a person who is learning about who they are.  But when the world seems to demand that you be someone you are not, it can be hard to find your way.





	Assigned Santa at Birth

**Author’s Note** **:** I realize that this is not a perfect analogy, but after the recent hubub in the news regarding a certain author and their certain nauseating stance regarding someone who was discriminated against for being transgender, I thought I would try my hand at writing something that someone might read to get a handle on why misgendering someone is such a big problem, and why it should never be tolerated anywhere. So without further ado, I present a short story about a baby who is…..

* * *

**Assigned Santa at Birth**

The Smiths were what you might call Christmas-obsessed. They took their observance of the holiday very seriously. So when Mary Smith found out that her due date was December 29th, she decided this was not acceptable and pressured her doctor for a c-section on Christmas day. Not to be outdone, her husband, Charlie Smith, snuck in decorations to the surgery room, and their son was born under a bunch of twinkling Christmas lights that ended up being the source of a secondary infection keeping Mary in the hospital for another week. 

But the Smiths knew it was worth it.

And, when their son was born with twinkling eyes, red cheeks, a chubby tummy that jiggled like a bowl full of jelly when he cried (“We’ll fix that later,” they agreed, “for he should never cry.”), and a face covered in fine white whiskers, there was no other choice but to name the child Santa. Yes. Santa John Smith was the name placed on the child’s birth certificate.

Now, of course, the extended Smith family (as well as the Holly family, who had brought Mary up with similar ideas about the utter importance of Christmas) were utterly overjoyed. A baby named Santa! Born on Christmas! Very quickly, little red velvet clothing with ermine trim and little distinctive red hats were knitted, sewed, and purchased. Baby Santa John Smith was a right jolly little elf that year. He was a baby, so he didn’t mind (though the boots were uncomfortable on his baby feet). In general, despite his unusual appearance (as far as babies are concerned) Santa John Smith didn’t really understand that there was anything unusual about having a small white beard, or being encouraged to be jolly at all times, or to wear the same red suit with a large black belt over his large middle.

Now, the city in which the Smiths lived was known as Tinseltown, and it was the most Christmassy city in the entire world. Why, folks began decorating for Christmas on Halloween, and plenty of families kept the same living tree up in their living room all year long and simply decorated it differently depending on the interloping holiday. Of course, not all families were as hardcore into the holiday as the Smiths, and there were a few families in the minority who either didn’t celebrate Christmas or who preferred a much more subdued observence of festivities. Still, little Santa John Smith grew from a baby to a toddler to a preschooler with very little thought to how he was treated. It was all he knew, after all, to be Santa, just like his name. He had a Santa action figure, and his parents thought it was adorable when he loaded up a small present sack with presents (he’d been taught to wrap at 18 months) and went around distributing them to people in the neighborhood. He ate mostly cookies and milk, which got tiring at times, and he was honestly relieved when his parents lamented that they could not keep a reindeer team within the city limits, but all in all, he knew they loved him and wanted the best for him.

When Santa John Smith started schooling, things were fine at first. In fact, he was very popular due to his love of giving gifts and sharing his cookie-and-milk lunch. Some people said unkind things about his beard or his belly, but it wasn’t pervasive. And, in fact, until he was part way through elementary school, Santa John Smith was content to keep things as they were. He didn’t want to disappoint his parents, even when he realized that his favorite colors were not, in fact, red and green. He preferred purple. And the large black boots he wore were not nearly as cool as the snazzy light-up sneakers that a lot of the other children wore. And he was sick of cookies and milk. He’d probably eaten every variety of cookie in existence. It wasn’t as though his mother was neglectful, after all, so he got all his nutrients. But he saw other people having different things in their lunches and would covertly trade them out, wondering at the different flavors and textures he’d never experienced before. Still, these were small, silly things. His parents had so many expectations for him that he didn’t want to disappoint them. But a new seed was planted in Santa John Smith’s heart. And a cold voice that sounded sinisterly like his own thoughts whispered to him when he learned something new about himself.

“You aren’t what they wanted, Santa John Smith. And they will hate you when they find out.”

There was fear in his heart, now, especially after his twelfth birthday party, where one of his best friends gave him the cool jacket he’d been wanting for ages. It was black and had a long silver zipper with a snazzy collar. He loved it. His parents forced him to take it back. 

“Not appropriate for a Santa!” they said, giving him a disapproving look until he felt like he was about to melt into his shoes. They then said some disparaging things about Santa John Smith’s friend and how said friend was probably a holiday heretic.

For awhile, Santa John Smith kept the peace, but now that he realized that there were other people living out in the world who had access to all sorts of things that had nothing to do with Christmas, and he realized that he wanted more. Sure, he loved his cozy home with its marvelous Christmas tree and his bed with a sleigh frame and reindeer sheets. But he also found himself wanting to wear boot cut jeans and a jaunty hat, and throw out all of those horrible thick belts that made his middle look even rounder than it was. He wanted to wear band t-shirts like his friends. He wanted to experiment with different facial hair. 

In short, he was beginning to develop his own tastes.

His parents lamented that he was turning into “a typical teenager.” He had  _ ideas _ , you see. Un-Christmassy ones. Ideas about himself being his own person. They worried for the future. All their hard work teaching him how a Santa should behave might be lost, and for what? Because of light up sneakers or silly jackets?

Santa John Smith decided to experiment being called “John,” for awhile. It was, after all, part of his given name, so it felt “safe” to do so. Only his best friends knew and were sworn to secrecy. Eventually, he realized that he liked the name Scott better. Scott Smith just sounded snappy and clean to him. It thrilled him to know that this was his name and his alone, chosen because it resonated with him. It had nothing to do with what people told him that he was based on how he looked with his red velvet Santa suit and Santa hat and hated black boots that pinched when he walked.

* * *

As Scott got older, he figured out new ways to hide his true nature from his parents and family. He did odd jobs for cash and saved up for a secret stash of clothing that was his true style. He hid them at the bottom of his closed in a bag that was tied up and marked “presents.” His friends were supportive of him, and helped him with make-up and temporary hair dye to change his appearance enough not to be noticed right away while they were out and about.

Of course, at some point it happened. They _saw_ him.

There were a lot of screaming voices after they dragged him into the car, his fear spiking as they told him in no uncertain terms that he was not to do anything like this again or see any of his friends, who were a “bad influence” and had made him do such un-Christmassy things. 

He tried to argue that he hadn’t been brainwashed or forced to do anything. He’d just realized that this was who he was. He asked them if they would support him, if they would let him be himself for once in his life. If they would call him Scott. He showed them the clothing he had saved up to buy. 

Instead, he was called a number of horrible things. His parents told him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t want to be Santa, they did not want to be his parents anymore. His father wrenched him by the arm and told him in a sneering voice that if he was now “Scott,” that this wasn’t his home any longer. His mother cut up all of his hard-earned clothing with scissors and set them on fire. He was thrown out of the house with only the clothes on his back, and when they threw his boots after him, they nearly slammed into his head. He ducked at the last minute, and when he stood, he found himself shivering in the cold only two weeks until Christmas.

They hadn’t even given him a coat.

The next few years were a blur of pain and bittersweet happiness. His friends and their families took him in until he could get on his feet, and after a bit of struggling, he finally was able to wear the styles of clothing he preferred. People called him Scott without giving him a funny look. He shaved his facial hair off at first, just glad to be rid of it, and sometimes wearing a hat or hearing Christmas carols made him feel like spiders were crawling up his back as he remembered the trauma of his past, but all in all he found himself thriving. 

After all that, he was still himself. He had just figured out what that meant a little bit better. 

Over time, his style changed. He enjoyed wearing button up shirts with a pocket in the chest. His favorite color was blue, (though purple was still nice too). He even made peace with enjoying Christmas, though he refused to dress up for the occasion other than the odd antler headband or tasseled hat.

It still hurt deeply that his parents refused to acknowledge his existence, but he’d found a family of other people who had similar experiences— there was his friend Mona whose parents had been obsessed with the Easter Bunny and abandoned her when she told them that she wanted to study Chemistry. There was Trudy, who had been assigned male at birth but was a woman as much as any other woman could be. There was Carl, whose parents had called him Suzie long after his medicine had gifted him with the full beard he’d always wanted and the confidence to tell everyone his true name. There was Enni, who preferred to be known as they, and who did not particularly care how they presented to others, and who was perpetually exhausted by those who refused to understand (sometimes even Trudy had trouble with this).

What Scott had realized after several decades on Earth was that what made a person a person was much more complicated and nuanced than he had ever thought back when he was a child. It wasn’t just about what he wore, or what his name was called, but those things held weight that had pressed upon his heart with their wrongness. 

He’d just gone with what his parents had known because he had no idea what he  _ could _ be. Who he wanted to be Learning new things and finding out about new ways of being didn’t  _ make _ him want to change. It only gave name to the knot of unpleasant  _ wrong _ feelings that had grown uncomfortably large in the absence of language, and had eased once he had learned how to express them.

And then he began working at a new job.

* * *

Of course, changing his name was a complicated process, especially since the local judges knew all about his family. He just wasn’t comfortable getting it done officially yet. Besides, every other job he’d had was willing to put the name Scott on his name badge, same as any other person with a nickname.

But this job was different. His new office had a receptionist named...Todd.

At first, Todd seemed nice enough. When Scott introduced himself, Todd shook his hand and welcomed him to the office. The first week or two was fairly peaceful, and Scott was glad that he was finally settling into his new workload.

Then…

That next Monday he found a red Santa hat on his chair. Someone began humming “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” when they walked by his cubicle. And, finally, Todd loudly wished Scott a good morning by saying, “Good morning, Santa!”

At first, Scott just tried to ignore it. He was new, after all, and didn’t want to cause trouble for himself. He kept his head down and tried to change the subject when Todd tried steering it in a direction that felt deeply insulting. Everyone else seemed to think that Todd just loved Christmas a lot, and technically many of the things he said or did were under the radar of impropriety just enough for everyone else not to notice it for what it was.

But no matter what he did, Scott couldn’t seem to get away from Todd’s malicious treatment.

It all culminated in a moment where Todd actually  _ rubbed _ Scott’s belly and commented that he had better eat more milk and cookies because his belly wasn't round enough to make him a believable Santa.

Scott reported the incident to his manager, who opened an inquiry with HR, and within a few weeks, Todd was let go.

Scott felt a profound sense of relief, but this was not the end of his troubles. Many of the other people in his office seemed to think that he was the reason that Todd had been fired. Many of the people who had spoken kindly to him now ignored him or were too busy to get coffee at break time. Nobody said anything directly to him, but he heard snickers and whispers and knew that they were probably talking about his part in the whole situation with Todd.

And just when he thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.

Someone, (Scott suspected Todd) wrote a very explosive letter to the editor about the incident and it went viral online. The whole story shot to the top of the various popular social networking sites and it seemed that most people thought that Scott was an asshole who couldn’t take a harmless joke. He ended up having to shut down all his social media accounts due to harassment, and even received a few crank calls at work from people asking him if he “had any extra presents” or telling them that they “didn’t believe” in him.

Eventually, Scott finally mustered up the courage and money to legally change his name. It cost a fair amount of money because he had to update all of his important documents and he still got some mail with his old name on it. He also moved to a new job, changed his facial hair style, and married the love of his life. But it still hurt that his parents wanted nothing to do with him, and he couldn’t stand to decorate for Christmas or observe any of the holiday traditions that had given him so much joy as a child. Rather than being fun to share with his family, they had become an expectation of what his parents had wanted him to be as a person, and in the end, that had wrung his love for the holiday season out until there was nothing left

Life wasn’t perfect, but then again, he didn’t need it to be. He just needed to feel safe enough to be himself.

And so he lived happily and free of his old name for the rest of his days.


End file.
